ONE of the top names gracing this year's Ulverston International Music Festival will be Lucy Parham, acknowledged by many as one of the UK's finest pianists.

Lucy applies her sensitivity and imagination not only to concertos and recitals, but also to portraits in words and music of such composers as Schumann, Chopin, Liszt and Debussy.

Her latest pianistic portrayal is Elegie: Rachmaninoff - A Heart In Exile, which she brings to Ulverston's Coronation Hall on Tuesday, June 13 (8pm) as part of the 2017 festival.

Elegie is the fifth ‘Composer Portrait’ concert to be compiled and scripted by Lucy, recalling the life of composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff.

For Elegie, Lucy has recruited high profile impressionist and actor Alistair McGowan as narrator, reading from letters and diaries which chronicles the composer’s youth in Russia, subsequent self-imposed exile, and final emigration to the USA.

The programme includes many of Rachmaninoff best-loved works for solo piano, including a selection of Preludes, Etudes-Tableaux and Moments Musicaux, the haunting Elégie, as well as works by Chopin, Scriabin and Tchaikovsky.

As well as act and famously impersonate the likes of David Beckham, Gary Lineker, Richard Madeley and Dot Cotton, Alistair has also written a one-man stage play about Satie, Erik Satie’s-faction’- which he performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and, in which, he will also played piano music by Satie and Debussy.

He has directed The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado for Raymond Gubbay and also directed Noel Coward’s Semi-Monde at his old drama school, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

With his wife, the soprano Charlotte Page, he devised and performed the show Sincerely Noel showcasing the music and verse of Noel Coward.

Also tied into the Ulverston festival with a Rachmaninoff connection is a special festival screening of Brief Encounter, Noel Coward’s romantic classic of 1945, with Rachmaninoff’s unforgettable Concerto no 2 a prominent feature of the soundtrack.

The screening will be at The Roxy cinema in Ulverston on June 13 (4pm).

Meanwhile, the illustrious 11-day Ulverston International Music Festival opens on Wednesday, June 7 (7.30pm) with English Touring Opera: Tosca, one of the world’s best-loved operas, brimming with lust, corruption and intrigue. The following evening (Thursday, June 8, 7.30pm) Ulverston Parish Church hosts the Ulverston Festival Chorus, directed by regular BBC radio choral conductor John Powell, in a powerful evening of choral favourites alongside organist Adrian Self and selected soloists from English Touring Opera.

And on the Friday (1pm), Passacaglia celebrate the music of Telemann, Bach and Handel at Ulverston Parish Church with the evening concert (7.30pm) over at the Coronation Hall, featuring the the dazzling virtuosity and sensitive musicianship of clarinettist Michael Collins alongside the irresistible piano playing of festival artistic director and founder, Anthony Hewitt.

Come Saturday (June 10), and the festival's Jazz Night stars the Remi Harris Trio, who take gypsy swing characteristics and infuse them with influences from jazz, blues, rock 'n' roll, funk, world music and more.

Sunday (June 11, 7.30pm) sees saxophone sensation Jess Gillam team up with internationally renowned Anthony Hewitt at the Coro for an evening show performing a programme ranging from classical arrangements to jazz favourites, joined by a string quartet from the Royal Northern College of Music. On Monday the two, hugely gifted Ulverston born musicians, share the stage again for an afternoon Children's Concert (1.30pm) again at the Coro.

Swarthmoor Hall joins the festival on Monday (8pm) and Tuesday (6pm), June 12/13, hosting a couple of performances by the emerging stars Castalian String Quartet.

Accomplished young pianist and passionate performer, Dominic Degavino, brings his talents to UIMF on Wednesday, June 14 (1pm) at Ulverston Parish Church, and Anthony is back in the festival spotlight with the Castalian String

Quartet for a performance of Shostakovich’s (and other pieces) at the Coronation Hall later the same day at 7.30pm.

Among the many other festival treats will be exceptional percussionists Oliver Cox and Owen Gunnell, best know as O Duo, who join the throng for a Coronation Hall performance on June 15 (8pm). The princes of percussion also stage a family concert with local schools helping them out with some rhythmic fun at the Coro on June 15 at 5.30pm.

Brilliant young viola player Timothy Ridout joins Anthony for a vibrant lunchtime recital on Friday, June 16 (1pm) at Ulverston Parish Church, Anthony is back on stage at the Coronation Hall on Friday night (7.30pm) with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and Paprika - who unite traditional Eastern European, Balkan, Gypsy and classical music - presents an unmissable festival finale on Saturday, June 17 (7.30pm), combining violin, accordion, guitar, bass, and percussion, during an energetic performance of toe-tapping music.

Box office 01229-587140 or visit www.coro.co.uk.